Gairnulf

I see now. My mistake.

I've fixed that. They're not, because they are too fragile at the front line and totally redundant in the back line. I agree it's absurd, and people have been protesting the unintuitive way in which primary attributes affect character stats. For example, which of the two is the real "Strength" - "Might" or "Perception"? the primary target will hit with full accuracy but every other target affected by the carnage ability will be hit with -10 accuracy I see.

I think Carnage reduces Deflection, and not Accuracy, contrary to what the wiki says. I can't start the game right now to check though. While playing solo Barbarian, I just went through the areas up to Caed Nua and compared the Barbarian's performance to what I saw the Wizard could do. I'm skeptical about the Barbarian being able to reach level 5 on solo PotD with any build, but I haven't exhausted all options yet. Maybe getting the Animat-summoning horn will change things, but even then it would be a very tough playthrough.

In that case Njall must be confused when talking about 3.5 pts per level.

How very unimaginative aweigh. You have to be among the worst attempts at pretending to be trolling around here

The discussion regarding the Barbarian in this thread got me curious, and I decided to test the class myself. Before someone proudly declares that they didn't read anything because it was too long, and not because they are too lazy to read a meaningful post, I'll summarize: I agree with brindle88. The Barbarian is a very handicapped class currently. Now that that's out of the way, to present my arguments. How I do class testing is, I start a solo game on PotD. I think soloing the first chapter of the game gives you the best idea about a class' performance. Advantages: The lack of party members allows you to have the most consistency when testing the character's combat performance. When you win, you win thanks to your abilities. Playing on PotD ensures that every tenth of a second, and every percentage point count. You have very little room for mistakes. By necessity, you get to become really good with that class. You often have to threorize and experiment with a few different builds with the same class. As a side effect to lots of game loading, you learn and test out the game's systems. As a side effect, you can confirm if soloing is possible with this class. Disadvantages: Random Number Generation becomes disproportionately important. That's because if, with a party of 4 or 5, you may on average score 2-3 bad rolls, but will still do useful things thanks to a couple of characters' good rolls, when you have a party of just one, almost every roll has to be a good roll, even when you are faced with just one enemy. You don't get a chance to test out talent synergies between classes. Not that anyone has ever made attempts to test synergies between classes anyway, at least to the best of my knowledge. Yet as a result, a class that only shines when in a party, might make a bad impression when soloing. This again touches on the question if some classes experience a big jump in performance when in a party, compared to when playing solo, and if yes, which combinations of classes are the optimal ones. You can consider each of the eleven classes as a subclass of one of two great classes - a Fighter or a Caster. The existence of many active and modal abilities makes the difference between the two great classes a bit blurry, but still, it's fairly obvious after you look at a class' class talents and abilities, if it's expected to shed blood/endurance on the front line, or to boost allies/nerf enemies from the back line. Another typologization could be done concurrently to the first one, by the classes' base Deflection, Accuracy, and Endurance values. Combined with the set of abilities/talents/spells, they should give us a good idea of what is expected of a given character class. Given this information, and using these metrics, what is expected of the Barbarian class? It has the most endurance, and is the class with the biggest health-to-endurance multiplier. It shares the second-worst deflection with the Rogue. The worst deflection, on paper, is the Wizard's, but it can be augmented very effectively in a number of ways by the wizard himself. So much so that if I have just a Barbarian and a Wizard in the party, it would be optimal to use the Wizard as the tank. That being said, we can say that the Barbarian and the Rogue share the worst Deflection among the font-line classes (if the Rogue is used on the front line). Accuracy-wise, the Barbarian resides in a second tier of classes, along with the Chanter, Cipher and Paladin, with the caveat that all these classes while being equal to the Barbarian class in base Accuracy, surpass it in Deflection - 25, 20 and 20 respectively, vs the Barbarian's lousy 15 base Deflection. A final note on Accuracy/Deflection/Endurance. You should know that if you strive to complete all or most of the side quests and tasks, your character will spend the majority of the game somewhere around levels 8-11, which for a Barbarian means unmodified values of:46-55 Accuracy (plus a flat 1 point of Accuracy for each point you increase Perception above 10) 36-45 Deflection (plus a flat 1 point of Deflection for each point you increase Resolve above 10) 160-208 Endurance (plus 5% for each point you increase Constitution above 10) So, it's abysmal Deflection, mediocre Accuracy and a large health pool, which together with the class' abilities will try to compensate for these disadvantages. How will it manage that? Regarding talents, all of the Barbarian's talents/abilities imply that it has to be used on the front line, so the AoE centered around him affects as many enemies as possible. Therefore, by the class' nature, the Barbarian will often be engaged by multiple enemies. Being engaged by multiple enemies (above your engagement limit) results in the "Flanked" status effect, which gives a character a penalty of -10 Deflection. In some circumstances this could reduce the Barbarian to 0 deflection (or even under 0 if that's possible), meaning that pretty much every attack is a hit and every other attack is a Critical Hit. Even with the barbarian's large health pool, he can't withstand this kind of beating while maintaining a good DPS - in other words - not unless you stack up his DR and as a result reduce his DPS, in order to keep him in combat longer. Knowing these things, what are the player's optimal strategies when distributing Primary Attributes scores? In version 2.03, the game suggests, of all things, Might and Constitution as strongly recommended and intelligence and and dexterity as recommended. I might be mistaken about those two, because I don't have the game open, but even if I am, it doesn't matter, because they look pretty wrong to me. For a solo build, what you want to give your character when it's from a front-line class is Accuracy and Action Speed, with Deflection also being important for those classes that can't boost their deflection through abilities, spells, etc. The reasoning is that when you are fighting multiple enemies, statistically, you are at a disadvantage, because for each time when you get a chance to score a hit, they will get more than one chance to score a hit at you. The way to mitigate this disadvantage is to increase the probability of your scoring a hit and the frequency with which you have a chance to score a hit, i.e. your DPS. Everything else takes a secondary place. This makes the Barbarian a bad choice for a solo build due to its naturally bad deflection and mediocre accuracy. When it comes to probability for a hit in combat, the Barbarian's best option is to go with double hatchets vs enemies with low or no DR (Skuldr Whelps), substituting it for a two-handed weapon when fighting targets with high DR (Tenfrith's abductors for example). However, even with maximized Accuracy and Deflection, the Barbarian is still no match for a simple Shade in the second level of the temple of Eothas, or for a group of three Xaurips, one of them a Champion (the encounter in Anslog Compass). With some degree of optimizing your path through Chapter I's areas, you may be able to raise enough money to buy the item in Gilded Vale that will let you summon an Animat. This might make it feasible to reach Caed Nua at level 5, but I'm having a hard time imagining the Battle in Caed Nua's main hall vs two Shades and 4 Phantoms (or were they 5). The Barbarian fails vs Shades in the following way - he gets hit by the Shade with 74 Accuracy vs his 30-something - 40 deflection at most. The secondary effect of the attack - Dazed - also hits with 74 Accuracy vs his 40-ish Fortitude. From then on, the Shade needs a few more strikes to bring the Barbarian down, and it scores them without error, simply because the Barbarian's Deflection is too low. It may be possible to still get through this battle with Potion of Wizard's Double, but then the final battle before reaching the end of the quest would still be too difficult for the Barbarian. I am currently soloing the game with a Wizard, lvl 6 right now. It's much easier to solo with a Wizard due to his CC capabilities, which provide for a multitude of approaches to combat vs many enemies at once (Bewildering Spectacle, Chill Fog, etc) plus the option to temporarily turn yourself into a high-DPS, high-Deflection fighter (Hardened Veil/Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff). Spending points for the attributes which become necessary for a viable solo build leave the Barbarian crippled in his most important attributes - Intelligence and Might, which allow the class to take advantage of his Carnage talent. Even with these maxed out, the Barbarian needs yet more points, to compensate for his lack of Deflection, either by pumping up Constitution or Resolve. Trying to compensate for the lack of Deflection by betting it all on DR and pumping up DR through equipment would just sink your DPS. Then you'd have to put hope in your accuracy, to score fewer attacks but more consistent hits. That would have been an option for the Barbarian if it weren't also handicapped in its Accuracy. This is why my conclusion is that the Barbarian sucks for a solo build. Normally if a class fails as a soloing class, that means it's a weak class in my book, but I'll ponder a bit on its chances when part of a party. I guess the Deflection deficiency will be less noticeable in a party, where the Barbarian can take advantage of the Fighter attracting all the enemies' attention, and of the Priest's buffs. Still, the Barbarian would remain vulnerable to AoE attacks and will more often than not succumb before the battle has ended. The Wild Sprint talent also inclines me to think that the Barbarian would be more viable in a party than soloing. However, with all this being said, I fail to grasp the point of the Barbarian as a class. If it's the Carnage ability, then that's in most cases no more significant than the effects of Chill Fog for example. If it's the afflictions he can cause on enemies, there are back-line caster classes who can cause these afflictions (and more), with less risk to themselves. The Barbarian doesn't provide boosts to allies, so all this leaves him with the role of an AoE damage-dealer and afflictions dispenser, only with the disadvantage of being very exposed to enemy aggro. That's too few advantages against too many disadvantages. Conclusion: unlike in the IE games, in PoE a big health bar can't compensate for an inadequate Armor Class. This means that a class that's betting on light armor, front-line attacks, and a large health pool, is doomed to feel inferior to classes with smaller health pools but rating higher in the PoE's equivalent of Armor Class. P.S. I challenge anyone arguing for the Barbarian's viability to post their videos of how they solo all or parts of Chapter I.

What is the difficulty at which are you playing through the dungeon?

Is there reliable data anywhere on Deflection and Accuracy progression? I thought every class progressed with +3 Accuracy and +3 Deflection per level, with just the base values being different.

If we're thinking realistically, a weapon set where the player is dual wielding pistols should mean that that player gets off two shots and then can't reload either pistol. Even this sounds like an interesting choice to have though - a very strong opening strike coming at the cost of 2 or 3 sec recovery when you are forced to switch weapon sets. The pistol is sort of a peculiar weapon among ranged weapons in its naturally being a one-handed weapon but requiring both hands to reload. The other ranged weapons are all two-handed weapons which also need both hands to be reloaded, so faced with development time constraints, I understand why Obsidian made the decision to just have the pistol behave like a two-handed weapon instead of going through the process of implementing, testing, bugfixing, and balancing stuff that's only relevant to one type of weapon - the ranged one-handed weapon. The same applies to what I'm suggesting in my last post - I understand that if people had the option to have strong opening strike and then carry on with combat with their cold steel weapon, without suffering the added weapon slot switch delay, then this might potentially make a pistol&cold steel weapon slot have higher DPS than an arquebus weapon slot, due to the time needed to switch from an arquebus to a cold steel-only slot. I hope I'm not being too unclear. Plus, you are correct, that a more realistic representation of having a pistol&cold steel weapon would be putting them each in separate slots, but according to the game's rules this wouldn't be an accurate representation of this weapon setup because 1. weapon slots are intentionally limited in the game already, and 2. the weapon slot switch animation would still apply, while it naturally shouldn't if a combatant just fires off a shot, puts the pistol in its holster and carries on fighting with a cold steal weapon he already has in his hand. Then maybe I could revise my proposal like this -- switching from a pistol weapon slot to any other weapon slot shouldn't cause the usual recovery delay. Anyway, it seems there is no way to represent the pistol correctly without it having some unique features among the other ranged weapons. I hope this is something they manage to do in PoE2.

There are no personal attacks. I seriously suggested him that he takes his lame trolling elsewhere if he doesn't agree with what I'm proposing, instead of cluttering a serious discussion with inane stuff like "keep paper notes of items' weight next to your keyboard". Not every idea he doesn't like constitutes a personal attack. Unless calling someone's trolling "lame" is a personal attack, while the trolling itself is ok.

Well, you can't reload a flintlock pistol with one hand, so I don't think even a shield might go. However, an opening shot with a pistol and then using only a cold steel weapon, without the usual accuracy bonus for one handed style (since you have the pistol in your other hand), I think that would have been nice.

When you say "from what I've read", does any of this info come from official sources? I wasn't aware they'd comment in such detail on PoE2 so early.

The podcast has Josh talking about his own game-making biography and preferences in games, PoE's current state and plans about it. TWM2 is coming in "Northern Hemisphere winter". I have been suspecting, but never heard it described in such detail, to what extent PoE was developed on improvisation. It's still remarkable, the quality of the final product, but to tell you the truth, the improvisation still shows Josh seems to see PoE2 as a chance to address feedback people had on PoE but was unfixable for PoE. [Wishful thinking mode ON] http://www.darkstation.com/podcast/darkcast/dci-darkcast/dci-107-marching-on-pillars-of-eternity-interview/

Me too. The combat, which takes up a large part of one's playing time, doesn't offer diverse problems for the player to solve. It feels repetitive, to put it simply, I can't go into details why, but that's how it feels for me. I haven't played the new patch with a party, and my solo playthrough hasn't put me against enemies with lots of immunities yet, but I'm interested in whether they'll add more variance and report when I have new info. I think before starting development of PoE2, developers and testers should play through IWD (I'd suggest the first one rather than the second) and BGII, at least to the end of Chapter 2, in order to know what their own fans understood under "in the spirit of the IE games" back when they were doing the first KS. After they know that, or have formed an idea of it, they should take what they identify as good in IE combat and throw out what's bad. I don't mind PoE2 being easy on most difficulty levels, like PoE is. People who have no understanding of the combat mechanics or rules should also have their fun, especially since they are the majority, including on the official forum. But what I want from PoE2 for players like myself is a difficulty level and combat mechanics that provide for this difficulty level, where I can feel challenge while playing with a party, and this level of challenge is comparable to the IE games. I'm not saying difficulty, but challenge here. Unlike most of the raving fanboys acting on an imagined obligation to defend the game, and taking every criticism of the game personally, Sensuki can back his opinions with arguments and evidence. That's what causes the butthurt. It's amusing to watch, along with the childish troll attempts that also come in response to his posts.

It's a game, I hope you are aware.

If that's so, I'm thinking that compared to other clipping issues during recovery the pistol isn't that much of a problem. BTW, who in their right mind would use a pistol with a shield? The pistol is already inaccurate

As I said, if someone complains in the lines of "I have no time to go to the other end of the map", they are just not ready to really optimize. Why do things half way with a stash button or piss-easy combat mechanics? To really optimize their gaming time, they need either a "Win Game" button, leading to instant enjoyment of victory, or to quit the game and go outside. Have I said that? No. You don't read what I'm writing, that's fine, just don't go posting replies. I already said twice that house rules don't help the situation since items still have no weight and quest items and ingredients go directly to the stash. And why don't you take your lame trolling attempts elsewhere, if the issue I'm pointing out is so unimportant to you? I started this thread for discussion, not to marvel at how dumb responses you can come up with. Great, the IE games give you an item in the late game that resembles a PoE feature you have from the get go, and this makes things totally equal. I don't know who you are hoping to convince with this argument. Nice, next time I want to drop an item, I'll go to the nearest container the location of which I've memorized. FYI, you can't access dead enemies as containers once you loot everything from them, not that it would have made sense.

A fun fact, I don't know if you've noticed - if one enemy sees you, all enemies see you. What I mean: 1. You are stealthed and out of the view of an enemy who is in your sight range. 2. Another enemy who is on patrol route comes near you and sees you. 3. Result: the enemy you were stealthed from now also sees you. No, except with Shadowing Beyond. The other bonus for the Rogue is from Sneak Attack, which applies if the enemy is under the respective afflictions. Once combat starts, going to stealth, exiting the area, opening containers, accessing your inventory, all become unavailable. Inb4, if you think this makes playing a rogue "easier" in a boring way, I agree.

@OP, I guess you're using "Sneak attack" and "Backstab" interchangeably. Just as scrotiemcb says, Backstab is a class talent for the Rogue which increases damage done from invisibility from 1.5 times normal damage to 2 times normal damage. There is another Rogue-specific talent called "Shadowing beyond", which turns you invisible, so these two talents are a good combination. I'm not aware of any other way to become invisible really. I wonder if doing damage to an opponent that's blinded or asleep counts as done from invisibility? I guess we need a developer to explain that, or experiment ingame. Anyway, damage done from invisibility isn't the same as damage from Sneak Attacks. As a Rogue, you can cause Sneak Attack damage even after you've been spotted by enemies, in the first 2 seconds of combat. You don't need to be undiscovered to score Sneak Attack though. For a Rogue, any attack done on an enemy which is under one or more of these conditions: Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, or in the first 2s of combat, counts as a Sneak Attack, meaning it gets +50% base damage. What's the difference between 1.5 times base damage and +50% base damage? None (someone correct me if I'm wrong), but the talent/spell descriptions are written inconsistently and sometimes confusingly. Hope that helps.

Are you having trouble hitting the forest lurkers, or having trouble causing damage when you hit them? In the latter case you need a boost in Accuracy or to cause an affliction which lowers the lurker's Deflection. Check what abilities Durance has (if you're playing with him or with some priest) that can help. Alternatively, wizards have spells that cause afflictions which lower deflection. Open the "Cyclopedia" ingame and look for afflictions that either lower Resolve or lower Deflection directly. If you can hit the lurker without problems, yes, Fan of Flames, Rolling Flame, Fireball, Crucible of the Soul, anything that causes fire damage will work better than average.

Are you sure? The pistol was one handed for a while in one of the beta versions, until it was promptly "fixed". There was even a thread requesting it remained "broken". Or did it surface then that the reasons were technical? Two separate recovery timers and so on?

I don't get it why do some people feel obliged to defend decisions made in making the game even when this requires totally breaking away from logic. Especially when it's evident those decisions were made first and foremost to save time in a hurry, and to circumvent a technical issue, and not as part of the design. That's just like in another topic, where someone was explaining to me why it's unimportant to be able to see your recovery speed and to easily calculate your party members' damage. Can you recall when did the player receive his first bag of holding? Because I bet you it wasn't at the start of the game, at level 1. No, they have a limit of 40 arrows/bolts/bullets. I'm not advocating tetris, quite the opposite, I'm offering a solution to it. Restricting the stash doesn't mean much when in every civilized area you have access to it. So, the limitless inventory is there as soon as you are out of a dungeon. This is still an oversimplification for me. And while you don't have access to the stash, what do you have? The height of inventory management? Every item still weighs the same, so what you get is exactly the inventory tetris we want to avoid. The only limitation is the space in the grid, because items have no weight. I have been using my own rules, but if you think over your suggestion, there are still two problems which are not addressed by house rules: 1. Items still have no weight, so the result of my house rules will be inventory tetris. 2. Ingredients and quest items still go to my stash by default. I've never tested thoroughly so you're probably right, I don't know. Items fading from the ground "only" is still way better than being unable to drop items at all.

Because fun takes a second place to "balance", which is unachievable anyway. As if cutting the damage by half and allowing the player to use pistols with one hand wasn't possible.

The only fix I've found to the "overabundance of resources" problem is playing solo on PotD. When I played with a party I reached the end of Act II and passed the whole White March without ever having to learn the particulars of combat. That's how easy it is. True, that was not on PotD, yet "Hard" is supposed to be "the opposite of easy". Also, if the difficulty of combat is coming from the player's lack of memorized spells or per-rest abilities, and not from particular circumstances, more or less unique to the encounter, combat will inevitably seem repetitive and the player will have to use the same set of actions over and over. Compare to combat in the IE games, or to combat in TWM. If I have to win more than 3-4 encounters with the same "tactics" in the span of an hour, then these encounters should not have been there in the first place. There is no new information, just robot-like repetition.

I went to Stalwart with a full party at level 9 on Hard but scaled up the encounters. It felt just right. The party was Rogue PC, Eder, Aloth, Durance, Kana, GM.